Overview

5 Great Writers Who Stole The Idea You Know Them For

moncler outlet jackets Coming up with a great idea is one of the hardest parts of the creative process. Of course, the process is infinitely easier if you don’t mind “borrowing” (a phrase here meaning “straight up lifting”) a few ideas from other people. moncler outlet jackets

Cracked loves William Shakespeare, and for good reason. The man’s an innovator of the English language, a dirty jokester, and a man who enjoys feeding minor characters to bears. He also popularized the Michael Bolton haircut centuries before it was ruined moncler outlet store by Michael Bolton.

And he rocked the hoop earring before Michael Jordan made it legit.

cheap moncler jackets Let’s start with Othello, which stands among cheap moncler coats the pinnacle works of Shakespeare’s remarkable career. Chronicling the misadventures of a noble but fantastically naive moncler outlet online Moorish captain of Venice, the play is a legendary tragedy of racism, distrust, jealousy, and betrayal. And, as if he were trying to live his life according to the themes of his famous play, Shakespeare stole the ever loving shit out of it. cheap moncler jackets

moncler outlet online A little known Italian novelist and poet named Giovanni Battista Giraldi, also known as Cinthio, wrote a short story in 1565 titled Un Capitano Moro, which historians have noticed shares certain elements with Shakespeare’s Othello. Which elements, you ask? Oh, nothing major; just the plot, characters, certain names, setting, and moral. Cinthio’s version of the story is so similar to Shakespeare’s acclaimed play that we’re surprised Shakespeare even bothered to change the title before ripping it right the fuck off. moncler outlet online

“Eh, nobody’s going to remember this Cinthio guy.” William Shakespeare

moncler sale outlet This isn’t moncler sale outlet exactly moncler outlet an isolated case of Shakespeare behaving like a college freshman struggling to piece together a last minute moncler mens jackets term paper by hitting Ctrl V of entire sections of Wikipedia; Romeo and Juliet was noticeably “inspired” by a 1562 narrative poem called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet. While The Bard generally stuck to ancient historical or oral legends when researching his plays, Othello and cheap moncler jackets Romeo and Juliet stand out moncler sale for being fairly contemporary works that he adapted without citation. There’s also the fact that they’re two of his most successful tragedies, but that’s surely just a coincidence. moncler sale outlet

moncler outlet sale The reason history doesn’t know Shakespeare as the first serial plagiarist is that he wasn’t monlcer down jackets technically doing anything wrong. Shakespeare started popping out his plays during the final decade of the 16th century, which predated the Statute of Anne in 1710 by over 100 years. The Statute of Anne was the first piece of legislation that granted intellectual property rights and protection to owners of creative works, which means that Shakespeare was pulling all his tragedy stealing bullshit before the act was truly illegal. So, while Shakespeare wasn’t technically guilty of plagiarism, he was still guilty of being an asshole. moncler outlet sale

Nineteen Eighty Four is the famous dystopian novel by George Orwell that didn’t feature talking pigs. A powerful and terrifying story of a totalitarian society watched over by the omnipresent Big Brother, its themes have influenced everything from TV shows to video games to irritating roommates who have never actually read the book but know to use the phrase “Big Brother” when referring to the Social Security deduction on their GameStop paycheck. You could write it off as coincidence, but in 1946 (three years before Nineteen Eighty Four was published) Orwell reviewed Zamyatin’s novel We and raved about Zamyatin’s grasp of contemporary politics and that of the dehumanized individual in modern society. Then he went on to use the shit out of said themes in his own book.

Still, it would be no big deal if it was just that We and Nineteen Eighty Four were both scathing critiques of totalitarianism and collectivization that’s a whole genre. But Orwell decided to go further with his “borrowing” of Zamyatin’s work. We has a variation of “thoughtcrime” called “imagination”, and a “Big Brother” called “The Benefactor.” Both novels see the ruling class inflict a form of elaborate torture on potentially dangerous thinkers to “adjust” their temperaments. Both novels use a mathematical equation motif (2 2=5 in Nineteen Eighty Four, the square root of 1 in We) to represent the incompatible logic of the protagonist and the fictional police state. Both feature a downbeat ending that sees the protagonist declare his love for the evil administration.

The two books aren’t 100 percent identical, but the important elements are all there. In Orwell’s defense, his book is undeniably better, like Star Wars compared to all the movies George Lucas ripped off to put it together. What’s more, it never really occurred to Orwell that his novel could ever change the literary world to the extent it did or, for that matter, at all. moncler outlet sale politically” and might never see the light of day at all. Basically, he was just writing some We fan fiction that somehow got turned into a huge industry. Sort of like 50 Shades of Grey.

moncler jacket sale Ben Franklin, the glorious Doctor Frankenstein to the monster that is America, had enough wit to fill three heads, and wasn’t too shy about showing it off. One of his many creative outlets was writing under his pen name, Richard Saunders, under which he could and often would behave like a goddamn troll if he felt like it. The Saunders persona was in charge of Poor Richard’s Almanack, the advice and diss track filled serialized almanac that was first published in the early 1730s. Its many quips and common sense advice are often credited for inventing American literary culture, and the publication did wonders for Franklin’s wallet and writing career. moncler jacket sale

moncler outlet store But how could one man even a nation founding, lightning taming, skullet sporting beast of legend take time from his hectic schedule of constructing history to constantly come up with such fine material? moncler outlet store

moncler outlet uk Ben Franklin was a complete genius, no doubt about it. Nonetheless, when it came to collecting material for his Almanack, he was prone to borrowing from his peers. A particular target of Franklin’s was the famous British satirist Jonathan Swift (the guy responsible for Gulliver’s Travels and suggesting that we all eat Irish babies to fight famine). Not only did Franklin liberally pilfer Swift’s material, but it’s entirely likely that the idea of writing a humorous almanac was Swift’s in the first place. moncler outlet uk

cheap moncler So, basically, the genius of the colonies was stealing from a dead baby comic like a common seventh grader. cheap moncler

Starting in 1708, Swift began printing a series of pamphlets of his own, with notable similarities to Franklin’s later endeavor. Swift, using the Britishly hilarious pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff, filled his pamphlets with funny predictions, the highlight of which just so happened to be a lengthy argument with prominent almanac maker John Partridge over whether or not Partridge was dead Moncler Outlet, which Partridge stoutly buy moncler jackets denied (Franklin would later have the exact same argument with a rival almanac maker named Leeds, and didn’t give up until Leeds actually died).

Franklin never denied his blatant thievery. According to Franklin’s logic, the more familiar the writings sounded, the more they resonated with his audience as universal common sense wisdom. Basically, he felt including bylines would make Poor Richard’s Almanack less successful, so he decided not to include them, preferring to have his audience believe that he was conjuring magical witticisms out of thin air with the power of his wispy haired skull.

Considering the fact that London based most of his stories The Call of the Wild included on the time he spent catching scurvy in the punishing Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, there’s no way he could’ve ripped anyone off, right? That would be like Carl Sagan ripping off someone else’s astrophysics background to write Contact.

moncler outlet Very few people were capable of delivering the punch to the gut prose of London. As it turns out, one of those people was future Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis, whom London hired to supply him with plot ideas. That’s right London hired a guy to tell him what to write about. moncler outlet

cheap moncler outlet And to just walk around the house, looking fancy. cheap moncler outlet

However, slipping a Nobel level talent a little cash for plot related advice was just one of the semi nefarious ways London avoided ever having to think too hard. Young’s non fiction book, My Dogs in the Northland and rewrote it as The Call of the Wild.

moncler sale London straight up admitted that much of his book was based on Young’s work, but denied that the term “plagiarism” applied because Young’s work was nonfiction, and you can’t plagiarize nonfiction. After all, writing a book based on other people’s research isn’t plagiarism, so how could London rewriting a rival’s nonfiction account of the Yukon into a best selling piece of fiction be considered plagiarism? moncler sale

moncler factory outlet This may not seem like the soundest logic, but the area was gray enough that London cheap moncler sale managed to dodge most criticism. He even took the time to graciously thank Young for the inspiration My Dogs in the Northland had provided, which is sort of like cheap moncler outlet Vanilla Ice sending David Bowie a thank you note for “Under Pressure.” moncler factory outlet.